Zinc finger proteins (ZFPs) are proteins that bind to DNA, RNA and/or protein, in a sequence-specific manner, by virtue of a metal stabilized domain known as a zinc finger. See, for example, Miller et al. (1985) EMBO J. 4:1609-1614; Rhodes et al. (1993) Sci. Amer. February: 56-65; and Klug (1999) J. Mol. Biol. 293:215-218. There are at least 2 classes of ZFPs which co-ordinate zinc to form a compact DNA-binding domain. Each class can be distinguished by the identities of the conserved metal-binding amino acids and by the associated architecture of the DNA-binding domain.
The most widely represented class of ZFPs, known as the C2H2 ZFPs, comprises proteins that are composed of zinc fingers that contain two conserved cysteine residues and two conserved histidine residues. Over 10,000 C2H2 zinc fingers have been identified in several thousand known or putative transcription factors. Each C2H2 zinc finger domain comprises a conserved sequence of approximately 30 amino acids that contains the invariant cysteines and histidines in the following arrangement: -Cys-(X)2-4-Cys-(X)12-His-(X)3-5-His (SEQ ID NO: 1). In animal genomes, polynucleotide sequences encoding this conserved amino acid sequence motif are usually found as a series of tandem duplications, leading to the formation of multi-finger domains within a particular transcription factor.
Several structural studies have demonstrated that the conserved C2H2 amino acid motif folds into a beta turn (containing the two invariant cysteine residues) and an alpha helix (containing the two invariant histidine residues). The alpha helix and beta turn associate along a hydrophobic interface and are held together through the tetrahedral coordination of a zinc atom by the conserved cysteines and histidines.
The three-dimensional structure of a complex between a DNA target site and a polypeptide comprising three C2H2 zinc fingers derived from the mouse immediate early protein zif268 (also known as Krox-24) has been determined by x-ray crystallography. Pavletich et al. (1991) Science 252:809-817. The structure reveals that the amino acid side chains on each zinc finger alpha helix interact specifically with functional groups of the nucleotide bases exposed in the DNA major groove. Each finger interacts with DNA as a module; changes in the sequence of amino acids of the recognition helix can result in corresponding changes in target site specificity. See, for example, Wolfe et al. (1999) Annu. Rev. Biophys. Biomol. Struct. 3:183-212.
Another class of ZFPs includes the so-called C3H ZFPs. See, e.g., Jiang et al. (1996) J. Biol. Chem. 271:10723-10730 for a discussion of Cys-Cys-His-Cys (C3H) ZFPs.
The modular nature of sequence-specific interactions between zinc fingers and DNA sequences (i.e., a particular zinc finger of defined sequence binds to a DNA triplet or quadruplet of defined sequence) allows certain DNA-binding domains of predetermined specificity to be designed and/or selected. See, for example, Blackburn (2000) Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 10:399-400; Segal et al. (2000) Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 4:34-39. To this end, numerous modifications of animal C2H2 zinc finger proteins, most often either mouse zif268 or human SP-1, have been reported. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,007,988; 6,013,453; 6,140,081; 6,140,466; GB Pat. No. 2,348,424; PCT WO98/53057; PCT WO98/53058; PCT WO98/53059; PCT WO98/53060; PCT WO98/54311; PCT WO00/23464; PCT WO 00/42219; Choo et al. (2000) Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 10:411-416; Segal et al. (2000) supra; and references cited in these publications. The results of these and other studies are generally consistent with the idea that it is possible to obtain C2H2 ZFPs, based on, for example, the mouse zif268 ZFP or the human SP-1 ZFP, of desired target site specificity. Such target-specific ZFPs are generally obtained by selection or design of individual fingers, each of which has a 3-4 nucleotide target specificity, and assembly of such fingers into a ZFP having a target site specificity of 9-20 nucleotides.
C2H2 ZFPs have been identified in plants, where they are involved in, for example, developmental regulation of various floral and vegetative organs. See, e.g., Takatsuji (1999) Plant Mol. Biol. 39:1073-1078. In plant ZFPs, however, zinc fingers do not generally occur in closely-spaced tandem arrays. For example, in a family of DNA binding proteins identified in Petunia (the EPF family), two canonical Cys2-His2 zinc finger motifs are separated by an intervening stretch of between 19 and 232 amino acids. The binding capability of this class of proteins appears to be determined by both the zinc fingers and the intervening amino acids, suggesting that plant zinc finger proteins have a different mechanism of DNA binding that do the zif268 and SP-1 zinc finger proteins, for example. In addition, the sequence specificity of DNA binding by EPF-type plant ZFPs is dependent upon different positions in the recognition helix of the zinc finger than is the specificity of DNA binding by most zif268-type ZFPs. See, for example, Takatsuji (1996) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. 224:219-223.
Targeted gene regulation in plants would facilitate numerous applications such as, for example, the optimization of crop traits affecting nutritional value, yield, stress tolerance, pathogen resistance, and resistance to agrochemicals. In addition, targeted gene regulation could be used to study gene function in plants, and to adapt plants for use as biological factories for the production of pharmaceutical compounds or industrial chemicals. Such regulation could theoretically be achieved by design of plant transcriptional regulatory proteins of predetermined DNA sequence specificity. However, to date, naturally occurring plant ZFPs that recognize DNA by using a tandem arrangement of modular zinc finger binding domains (as do zif268 and related ZFPs) have not been described. Therefore, it remains difficult, if not impossible, to design a plant ZFP capable of recognizing and binding to a particular predetermined nucleotide sequence. Furthermore, since the mechanism of DNA binding by plant ZFPs remains largely unknown, no immediate solution to this problem is apparent. Accordingly, the ability to design and/or select plant zinc finger proteins of predetermined target specificity would be desirable.